


The map is not the territory

by prairiegrass



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: I promise it’s G-rated tho, Light Bondage, M/M, Suicide mention, all they do is kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-06-30 11:38:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15750909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiegrass/pseuds/prairiegrass
Summary: Richard's at a crossroads.





	1. The map is not the territory

After the credits had rolled for the NOVA documentary they'd been watching, and after both of their mugs had been drained of Sleepytime tea as they'd discussed their insights about the subject, it was bedtime.

Jared excused himself to the bedroom, and when he emerged minutes later, it was in pajamas, soft dark pants and a white crew neck. Richard himself, in the meantime, had stripped down to his boxers and undershirt. Together, they made the bed in here, chatting amicably as they did so. Jared insisted that Richard take his room, so there Richard went, and settled himself between Jared's sheets.

He had never been one to fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, likely thanks to the copious amounts of caffeine which usually got him through the day. Even though those coffees and energy drinks had been replaced tonight with a nighttime tea, he was still unable to find easy sleep in this unfamiliar environment. So there he lay, his mind following the hyperlinks in a web of thought patterns.

That documentary, the one they'd been watching on PBS, it was about cartography, and Richard thought of mapping Jared's every inch. The distance from his mouth to his neck to his nipples, the distance between them. The depth of the little hollow Richard was _sure_ had to be in that man's chest. Even lower, his soft length, his hard length. He pictured measurement tools, compasses and rulers, creating little divots on Jared's skin.

He must have dozed off eventually, because he was aroused from his sleep by the little chirping chimes of his cell phone alarm. He stretched out, and the bed was bigger than it should have been. With groggy morning slowness, his awareness sharpened, and he remembered where he was, in Jared's condo, in Jared's bed. He got dressed in the change of clothes he'd brought over and made the bed, then he turned the doorknob, opening the door with a slow gentleness so as not to disturb Jared if he were still asleep out here.

He wasn't, though he _was_ still in his pajamas. The pullout bed had already been folded back into a proper couch, and Jared stood in front of his TV following along with a video. The volume was turned down low.

"Go ahead and take your sweet time as you roll back up, just go one vertebra at a time, that's it," came a female voice over tranquil music, and Jared followed her lead, rising from where he'd been doubled over in a bend with his legs kept straight and his big hands touching the floor. Those hands slid up his shins, and caught a little on his pajama bottoms until Jared reached his thighs and the fabric fell back down, covering up again the little glimpse of hairy skin that had been revealed. The arch of Jared's back resolved itself slowly into straight, prim posture, and finally, Jared's head rolled up too, those bright, pale jackdaw eyes meeting Richard's own.

"Oh, good morning, Richard!" Jared greeted brightly. Richard had _definitely_ been staring, standing dumbstruck there in the doorway, but if Jared minded he didn't show it. "There's coffee in the kitchen, but I didn't make breakfast yet. Let me pause this and I'll go ahead and get it started."

Richard interrupted Jared's gesture towards the remote, "No, don't worry about it, go ahead and keep exercising, I'll take care of breakfast."

With a smile, a salute and a "yes sir, captain," Jared returned his attention to the woman in the video.

Richard padded over to Jared's kitchen, through the passageway that led there from his living room. The coffee's aroma hit him, and before he got started with the food, he rummaged through a cabinet and grabbed a mug. "Tea with a friend brightens any day," it read, and also printed on it was an illustration of fluffy bears who drank tea together at a little table. Richard smiled at the design and poured himself a cup from the French press on Jared's counter.

After draining half the mug he set it down, then grabbed a frying pan and spatula from the dish rack. A block of tofu had already been drained in the press, so tofu scramble it was, Richard decided. He grabbed the EVOO and poured a bit into the skillet, then removed the tofu from its press and used the spatula to crumble it, over medium heat.

He went to the spice rack and chose some seasonings, then for good measure, he turned around to the fridge for vegetables. Chancing a glance into the condo's living room, he noticed that Jared had disappeared -- oh, no, it was just that he was on the floor now, in a butterfly stretch.

With the addition of the mushrooms and spinach and peppers, breakfast was really shaping up now. He let it fry, and by the time it was cooked, Jared was done with his exercises and dressed and groomed for the day. He joined Richard in the kitchen, poured himself a cup of coffee too, into a mug with a picture of a cottage, then set the table for the two of them. Richard freshened up his own coffee before turning off the heat and serving the meal.

"My gosh, Richard, you didn't have to go to all this trouble."

"No, it was no trouble, it was. The least I could do. In exchange for you letting me stay here, I mean."

"Don't get me wrong; I truly, deeply appreciate that you would go to such lengths to so graciously accomodate me. Oh, Richard, it's delicious. I'd happily relive all those days of having my mouth stuffed with gruel or dirty rags if that was what it took get to enjoy your meal in this moment."

Feeling embarrased by Jared's usual, lavish reverence, Richard squirmed in place. "C'mon, you wouldn't have to do anything like that. And it really wasn't any trouble. All I had to do was research a recipe."

He pulled out his phone and shook it in his hand to illustrate the point. But it seemed to have the opposite effect, because Jared started tearing up even as he picked up more forkfuls. Richard thought it best to just change the subject.

"Anyway, can we go to the house after work today? Even if Jian-Yang won't let us live there I still need to grab more clothes and get my shit off the lawn."

Jared agreed, and when they finished breakfast they headed to the office, Richard in the driver's seat, navigating through traffic lights and road signs. When they left late and arrived at the old hostel, Dinesh and Gilfoyle were already there, packing up their own things. And, to no one's surprise, they were also already in one of their spats.

"Identity construction through hyperpersonal social media only illustrates how shallow your interpersonal relationships are. You really think your friendship is gonna deepen if he taps a little thumbs-up, or a heart?"

But Dinesh was too jazzed about his new roommate and his new car to pay any mind to Gilfoyle's attempts to rile him up. He kept taking selfies with each piece of furniture he packed, tagging Jeff in every picture he posted.

"Of course we'll become friends when he sees what a fun, cool guy he's living with now. You know, maybe if you didn't post to anonymous image boards with insults and pictures of racist frogs, even you could make a friend online. Hey, we went halfsies on that, you can't take it! Who are you even gonna play with in your shitty one-bedroom?"

"You cannot take it," Jian-Yang agreed in his accented English. "You can take your spell components and your witch robes but the games stay here."

Gilfoyle opened the box, removed the disc, and broke it in half. After that, they both just kept packing in silence.

(But their belongings would actually stay crammed into the Tesla and the jalopy until they decided to move back into the house.)

Richard carried his own furniture inside with Jared's help, assuring Jian-Yang that he wasn't trying to move back in, just getting his things out of the yard. He packed a laundry basket with the clothes from his dresser, probably more than he should have brought for a temporary stay at Jared's place, but it felt like... it felt like moving in when they drove back and he hung them up in Jared's closet. He shook his head. No, that wasn't what this was. He could cook up his little fantasy, his cockamamie design of domesticity, but that map wouldn't be one to reflect reality.

Still, he could get used to this. Jared picking up half a sock from his side table, knitted to just past the heel turn and divided between several double-pointed needles, and starting to shape the foot. Richard sitting beside him, watching him work, or helping with chores and meals. He knows he's a, a snot-nosed punk, petty and vindictive, but, he thought... it's nice to feel friendly.

When they went to bed, Jared insisted again that Richard take his room. He arranged himself under the covers in his pullout bed, scrunching up to fit the space.

"No, Jared, this thing is clearly too small for you. Look."

Richard got onto the bed beside Jared. He joined him beneath his blanket. Lying on his back, he stretched his feet straight out. "See?"

Richard turned to his side, face-to-face with Jared. Their legs accidentally brushed, and he quickly pulled his away, before reconsidering and lowering it back down into a deliberate touch.

"Too small. Way too small. So let me sleep here, ok?"

He supposed he demonstrated his point effectively, because Jared slowly nodded his agreement. But even once he was long gone, Richard could still feel the warmth from where he'd been laying beside him.

Richard's half-assed house hunting came to an end when Jian-Yang went to China. Without an excuse to keep crashing at Jared's, Richard packed up again to move back in. They drove through residential streets, this time with Richard as Jared's passenger. The little journey they'd shared together, it was all over now.

Jared pulled up to drop him off. It was the end of the line.


	2. How an algorithm feels from inside

The hoodie Richard wore tonight didn’t have a zipper, so he couldn’t wrap the pockets around each other in his comforting, defensive way. Instead, he sat fidgeting with his hands inside his single pocket. When he opened the door, he’d chart a new course. He’d never live with Jared again. He’d yet again have to negotiate a complex work-life balance, now without his COO at his side anywhere but the office.

Jared pushed the gear shift forward, and put the car in park.

“Richard? Did you need my help bringing your things in?”

“Oh, ah, no, sorry.”

Richard gripped his hands hard: if he was going to grab the handle of the door, take his things from the back of the Volt, and carry them back into the house to move in, the first step was to _stop fidgeting_. He brought his hands out of his pocket, and rested them on his lap. He took a deep breath through his nose, touched the handle, looked out the window, counted the comforting stars.

“Richard?” Jared said again. He rotated a dial at the side of the steering wheel to turn off the headlights. “Are you having anxiety?”

Richard let his breath out through his nose, slowly, as though a flame held beneath would barely flicker -- the way Jared had taught him.

Jared, who sings with birds like a Disney princess. Jared, a suicidal boy with suicidal friends. Jared Dunn, Donald Dunn, who _loves him_. If there are multiple branching routes, consequences for each action, he'll only ever follow one line of the flowchart. Following a garden path, a yellow brick road, a red string of fate. He kept his hand on Jared’s door, but he turned around to address him.

“Have you ever -- wished you could have a save point? Like in a video game. Save the game, massacre the town, reload and be able to make a different choice?”

“Well, I don’t really... play games...”

“Ok, then,” Richard pressed his lips thin, racking his brain, boiling over with ideas, “how about, multiverse theory? Parallel universes. A billion billion possibilities, more than that, infinitely many.”

Richard dropped his hand from the door and unlatched his seatbelt, but he didn’t turn back to open it. Instead, he leaned over the center console, close to Jared, dangerously close. Jared's jackdaw eyes were now more like a deer in headlights -- but his lips parted, and he leaned forward too. Choosing his decision, his single chance at reading the true end, or, at least reaching a good end, Richard closed their distance, into a slide of little kisses and captured lips.

A pattern of question-and-answer, stimulus-and-response emerged as they moved together: Jared angled so his kiss grazed inside, and Richard opened up with a whining moan. He nipped at Jared’s lower lip, a little bit, experimenting, then Jared in turn brought Richard's into his mouth, sucking at him wet and warm. Richard supported his weight on one arm, and moved the other to touch Jared’s thigh, not to the point of heavy petting, but petting to be sure.

He felt like a teenager, making out in the car while he was being dropped off. He thought of taking this inside, but the lights were still on, and there was no way he was gonna take Jared to his room in front of Gilfoyle and Dinesh. If he invited Jared in and tried to wait them out, they’d catch on when Jared didn’t leave after helping Richard move, and if they went back to the condo, that would raise suspicions too when Richard waited until tomorrow to move in.

He scrambled over to sit on Jared’s lap, careful not to set off the horn behind him. Since Jared was so tall, his seat was scooted far back from it, but it still would be easier if...

“L-lower your seat.”

Jared obediently slid his left arm down between the door and the driver’s side seat, and Richard kissed him again and pushed on the headrest. It lowered all the way down until it stopped against the back seat, and Jared went with it, so that Richard was now riding him. He took hold of Jared’s wrists, and he tucked them under the seatbelt.

“Is that ok?”

“Yes, oh, Richard, you can do anything you want to me.”

At Jared’s stark confession of acquiescence, Richard felt his anxiety cresting again, “Do -- do it _to_ you? Jared, it’s not, this is, we’re together in this, right? You’re not, my, my _plaything_ , we’re, we’re --”

“Shh, Richard, baby, it’s alright,” Jared said, his voice low, looking up toward him beneath the glow of the moon and stars. “If it’s too much, I'll tell you, I’ll tell you no, I’ll tell you to stop. Trust me, trust me, I want it, Richard, I want this.”

Richard ran his fingertips over the seatbelt stretched in front of him, closing his eyes, calming himself through Jared's reassurances. "Right, no consent play here," he said after a short time, another awkward hedge. “Yeah. Yeah, ok, let’s keep going, like this, then."

He started to pull the seatbelt from its feed, until he reached the end so that the locking mechanism engaged. Then he let it slide back all the way inside, its material slipping through his hands. Even then, he pulled it tighter still.

He ducked into the triangle created by the restraints across Jared’s lap and hands, the belt where Jared’s chest would be, and the door. They kissed like that, Richard’s hands sweeping up through Jared’s hair, then down to touch his neck, then to the shoulders of the car seat. Jared started huffing hard, and Richard eased up, finding the edge and riding it. He gave little teasing kisses then, playing with a flick or swipe of tongue across lip, tongue across tongue. 

Wherever the two of them would go from here, as friends, as colleagues, as lovers, they could sketch out that map together. At any rate, Richard definitely needed to take some time to cool down and plan rationally. Finally he let go, maneuvered back upright, and pressed to release Jared's seatbelt. He reached down to the lever that would adjust the back of the seat again, met Jared's lips when he came back up, then ran his hands down the sleeves of Jared’s shirt, until he reached the cuffs. He soothed Jared’s wrists in silent meditation, tucking his face into the crease of Jared's shoulder and neck. Then he pulled away, opened Jared's door, and exited without a word. He walked around the front of the car, to get into the passenger's side once more. 

“Let’s just... go take a drive around town for a while.”


End file.
